


Saltwater

by hardcovermanuscript



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Angst, M/M, POV First Person, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-11
Updated: 2016-03-11
Packaged: 2018-05-26 01:02:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,349
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6217354
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hardcovermanuscript/pseuds/hardcovermanuscript
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I've always been an ugly crier.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Saltwater

When I was five years old I tried playing volleyball for the first time. But the only thing I remember is the smack of leather against my face, the blood dripping from my nose to mix with my saltwater tears because I’ve always been a crybaby. I said I’d never play again, because it hurt too much and I hate crying.

I was over it within a week. My sister would toss to me and I would still cry when I missed but I never shed a tear over getting hit in the face because there was nothing quite like the sound of my palm hitting the ball in exactly the right place.

When I was seven I joined a team. I was quiet and reserved and frustrated that the boy with the dark spiky hair and crooked teeth was so much better than me at something I’d only amateurly rehearsed. He smiled when he introduced himself, his grin brighter than the burning sun on that summer day. But I ran away from him and kept practicing because there was no way I was going to lose to some kid I just met.

My sister grew tired of me asking her to practice, saying she needed time to study when she was really only messaging friends and sitting on her laptop. But I knew she wouldn’t change her mind, so I practiced alone day in and day out with little to no progress until the spiky haired kid interrupted me. He said he needed practice, too, and we should do it together because that’s how a team plays.

I turned my nose up; I didn’t want to be on _his_ team, but he insisted, his eyes narrowing into darts that were so sharp I was going to cry again but I held it in. This kid would not make me cry, because I hate crying.

He came to my house so often I didn’t even realize he lived down the block, and when I asked if he wanted to practice at his house next time he shook his head and said there was no room. I wondered what he meant, but let it go because of the unwavering certainty in the straight line of his lips, and the furrowed expression of his brow.

When I was ten years old we won our first volleyball tournament. I told my spiky-haired friend that it was all because of him, because he was the ace and aces win matches. He hit me on the head, making tears curl in my eyelashes, as he yelled that there can’t be an ace without a setter, _**dumbass.**_ That was the first time I heard him swear but it sounded okay coming from the gap between his teeth so I didn’t need to cry.

It was raining when we planned to go to the beach that weekend, because beach volleyball is really great practice for strengthening calf muscles and that’s really how we thought we could grow taller. Instead we ran to the convenience store down the street in our rainboots and read a magazine about the national volleyball tournament. We dreamt that one day we, too, would compete on that stage.

We split an ice cream that day, because I felt so very warm from the pleasure of his company, from the way his wet hair stuck to the tanned curve of his cheek, from the way he grinned as he told me I could “have the bigger half” since I would probably cry if I didn’t get it. He didn’t realize I was older now, and being around him kept me from crying.

When we were fourteen he told me the team with the better six is strongest. I didn’t know why he was saying something so obvious because _**of course**_ the team with the better players will win. But he meant something different then, and I couldn’t understand it clearly because it was so late and I was so tired and that genius underclassman was pissing me off again.

We lost the tournament that year, and we cried together on the walk home without saying a word. What would I say to him, our ace, that I had failed because I missed a toss and my jump serve was out and I couldn’t receive very well to begin with? So why couldn’t I apologize? I looked at him then, his narrow eyes reddened from the salty stain of his tears, his nose rosy and swollen. I was pretending that it was because it was really quite chilly outside even though it was the middle of summer, which was exactly why my own cheeks were flushed, I’m certain.

We were seventeen when I first wanted to kiss him. I didn’t know the feeling at the time, but I recognize it now as yearning, wanting to press my soft lips against his harsh, broken ones, to feel his glare on my person as if I was the only thing in his eyes. I suppose I may have wanted to kiss him this whole time, but now it was insatiable. He caught me staring, removing his earbuds as he asked me “what the hell I was doing” in that garish tone, but I just laughed the way I always did at his vulgar speech. Because his voice was as smooth as velvet even when he was saying the raunchiest words.

We were seventeen when we played our last game together. He was so angry and so frustrated and even though I was spewing sweet nothings about how he did his best but he couldn’t hear me now. He was too far away. His breathing was so heavy it moved him, from the edges of his broad shoulders to the finest lines of his thick fingers as sweat dripped down his arms. Never had I wished so much that those bold ethereal muscles would just wrap around me now and never let go, because I felt warm water on my face and I don’t want to cry in front of him. So could he just hold me, please?

When we were eighteen we graduated, and we separated for the first time. I let him go without saying that I really liked his dark chocolate hair even if he used too much gel and the way his lips curved to fit so perfectly against my smirk, a guise to hide the fact that I really and truly loved my best friend as more than a best friend. Because, actually, it was more like the way you love something when you just want to lock it in a box and never let anyone see. But he’s walking away now and it’s all I can do to keep from screaming his name to the high heavens in the hopes that he hears me and returns some kind of sentiment that I can grasp. But he keeps walking, and I don’t say a word.

Four months pass and I see him again when our schools play against each other, and I’m playing my hardest to show him _This is how much I’ve grown. This is what I’m capable of._ Because I just want him to be proud and say “That’s him, that’s the guy for me.” But when the game is over and I’ve won I feel no sense of victory as he walks over to someone and holds them tightly. It’s tighter than when he grasped my hand as we ran through the rain, tighter than the time he gripped my shirt as he yelled at me in the middle school gym, tighter than the grip he’s held on my heart for all of these years that I’m sure that it’s getting too tight, _**too tight**_ now, because I can’t breathe and it’s making me whimper.

It’s only after he lets them go that he comes to me for a high five, and I put on my best mask and beam at him to return the gesture. It was all I could do then. After all, I really hate crying.


End file.
